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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

In every poll I’ve seen, hefty majorities approve of President Obama’s economic performance. Approval numbers for congressional Republicans remain dismal.If we’re to make progress in 2010, we have to look serious. This week we looked not only irrelevant, but clueless and silly.

Again with the "we" -- as if he and John Boehner and Tom Coburn are sitting around plotting Republican strategy. But the real problem with Frum's argument is something I pointed out Sunday: Opinion-poll numbers in February 2009 don't mean zip if what you are "popular" for is passing a neo-Keynesian stimulus that won't work.

Ross Douthat echoes Frum, pining to see Republicans "articulating an actual alternative to Obamanomics." But why should they propose an "alternative" that can't possibly be voted into action given the current overwhelming majority? At this point, Boehner should just tell Ron Paul to keep denouncing central planning and Keynesianism, and let the main GOP message on economics be one of repeated warning: The Obama/Pelosi/Reid plan is leading the U.S. economy into a fiscal trap.

Trying to "win" news cycles in February 2009 is not what the Republican Party needs to be worried about. Let's see what the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the inflation rate and the unemployment rate are on Labor Day 2010 before deciding who looks "serious" and who looks "silly."

10 comments:

Frum never met a conservative principle he wouldn't sell down the river for some temporary gratification from the polls, and Douthat? Well, you're takedown of Mr. "The conservatives need us elites" last October said it all.

Mark Levin hit the nail on the head in a similar argument on The Corner yesterday, i.e. the Republicans offered a number of ideas, but in the end they don't have the votes and were completely shut out of the negotiating process. Of course, those facts never seems to have occurred to Mssrs. Frum and Douthat, who like hearing themselves.

Frum means well and he is not stupid. I think he and Douthat (but not Brooks) are still worth listening to. But in the end, anyone who is so easily scared of Sarah Palin and the pro-lifers that he feels the need to change the very nature of the party is not someone whose advice I feel compelled to take.

"But why should they propose an "alternative" that can't possibly be voted into action given the current overwhelming majority?"

Because in a mere one and one half years from now people will remember one of two things, either: "all they ever did was vote against and say it wouldn't work" OR "they had a plan that might've worked."

You don't beat a something with a nothing. Yeah, I know the Dems have been counting on the American people having no memory and no ability to focus hard thought on a subject. And for the last 14 years they usually lost. We should not emulate them.

"You don't beat a something with a nothing. Yeah, I know the Dems have been counting on the American people having no memory and no ability to focus hard thought on a subject. And for the last 14 years they usually lost. We should not emulate them."

That depends on what the "something" is. If the "something" is a "stimulus" bill that is a total Keynsian failure/porkfest that does nothing for the economy other than make it worse, than "nothing" will kick it's ass every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

And when "nothing" is a direct result of being denied the opportunity to negotiate the bill and offer amendments thereto, those who gave us the "something" will get punished even worse.

Never mind the fact that the republicans did discuss their alternatives publicly - they just couldn't get the democrats to ever consider them.

If you don't believe "nothing" can beat "something", then good luck explaining how democrats re-took congress in 2006 with a platform that consisted basically of not being republicans.

Hit the tip jar, you ungrateful bastards!

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